January in Board Games
only 13 days late...
The end of January and start of February were a bit of a blur - I attended the Level Up Retreat in New Jersey (separate post, I promise!) and then was whisked away to Wisconsin for family stuff. So I am just now sitting down to look back on the first month of 2024 and what games made it to the table!
Jaipur had the most plays as it still the perfect lunch break length game. The pacing is just right that your opponent can be deciding on a card and you can take a bite of sandwich without slowing things down.
I added a little extra spice to lunch games though after I picked up the Extra Salt expansion for Sea Salt & Paper (see what I did there?). Unsure if the Sea Horse is OP or not but adding this small selection of new cards did get the game back to the table after a month off.
I joined the Chip Theory Games club and picked up Too Many Bones. You play a sa Gearloc whose powers come from the dice you roll, so you want to level up to unlock new dice and powers. I tried to learn this via tabletop simulator years ago, but nothing beats rolling the dice IRL. I played a few solo games and only fudged a few rules (which I just found out in February when I actually got to play with people). It is so very satisfying to roll all those beautiful dice.
Tim got me Silver & Gold for Christmas and I taught it to the family. It’s a flip and write, very quick - like 20 minutes. They seemed to like it a lot! It’s just enough of a puzzle but no “take that” elements which can really upset my step-daughter. She just wants to maximize her points, not worry about someone coming after her.
A friend visited from Texas and brought his copy of Fuse along, which we played in a board game cafe in Washington D.C.. It is a co-op-ish game where the group is rolling dice to defuse bombs based on specific number and color combinations so you need to discuss who can use what dice because if someone can’t place a dice on the round, they have to reroll and what they get can effect everyone at the table. It was a great game but we didn’t bother with the timer the first round -navigating the cards and dice on a table filled with drinks and food was challenge enough! According to BGG this has been redone as a Pandemic game?
Speaking of redone games, Witchcraft! arrived, another solo game from the team that did Resist! - just enough tweaks and changes to make it a unique game from it’s predecessor. I’m happy to have both in my collection. Witchcraft’s cards interact a little more, with a witch’s family giving her bonuses and buffs so you draft your deck a little differently than you would in Resist. The end game is convincing the locals you’re not suspcious. So a few more pieces to the puzzle than Resist’s survival mode.
We played Sabobatage at my Board Game Night program at the library. The designer was kind enough to donate a copy and it’s simple enough that the kids picked it up and were immediately sabotaging each other’s shops. Think “Unstable Unicorns” but with more boba and straws. It was really fun and honestely warmed my heart to see these kids who did not now each other all sit down and play with me. Games are magic like that.
I also playe Root with my online friends. I love the Dire Wolf digital adaptation of this war-game-disguised-as-cute-animals-game and we all managed to log on and play a live game. I still don’t understand any of the factions beyond the base group, but I still had a good time even if I had no idea what the Corvids were up to!
And then I had some friends over at the end of the month for a game day. One of them brought Fit to Print, which is a great spacial puzzle as you gather articles and photos for your newspaper, then have to arrange them all to actually FIT on the page. Another game where we just ignore the timer mechanic because it’s anxiety inducing enough as it is!
Then we played Wandering Towers, which has such great table presence. Actual towers that get magically moved around the board as the wizards race to fill their potions and then get to Ravens Keep. My friends are too nice though and kept apologizing anytime they covered up a wizard with a tower even though that is the ONLY way to win the game (it’s how you fill potions). But it was a signal to me as the game-chooser to not pick anything cut throat with this bunch.
We ended the night with a game of Quacks of Quedlinberg. I had only played this on Tabletop Simulator, so it was great to finally get my copy to the table. I love this bag builder, push your luck game about crafting a potion. But, again, I learned a bit about my friends play style as they were nervous about busting - but I think that is pretty common in the first game because it sounds so bad, but Quacks is so well done, it keeps you from getting steamrolled from a couple of busts thanks to the rat tails.
And, of course, many many games on BGA - 190 games played! I will safe the highlights from that collection for another post.
How was your gaming in January? Any games I mentioned that you want to know more about? Let me know in the comments!